Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Nicaragua have shown that by breaking with the unfair order imposed by the neoliberal adjustment policies, promoted by Washington and the western powers, they already have a more favorable economic development, and even a better social development.
Alejandro Castro EspinCan we say that the constitutional monarchies in Spain, Belgium or England are democratic? Those with superior chambers like the House of Lords in England, that still represent the English feudal nobility in terms of positions above regional representatives, who are in the end the representatives supposedly elected by the population. Many mechanisms exist, but they are mechanisms to preserve the power of the wealthy classes, of the bourgeois classes that hold the power and rights above the rest of the society.
Alejandro Castro EspinIn Cuba we are building a socialist society and we could say we are on the verge of a communist society which is hard to achieve, very hard to achieve, but is a longing worth fighting for.
Alejandro Castro EspinUnder communism, no one would be living in marginal conditions as they do under capitalism today and where the greatest part of humanity lives.
Alejandro Castro EspinThere is us living the Cuban experience that we believe is ours. We do not believe that it is perfect, but it has been above all counting truly on the people, which is where the origins of true democracy lie.
Alejandro Castro EspinCommunism is an aspiration, an aspiration is an ideal, a dream, a longing of something that would be perfect, but hard to build because it has to clash with human nature and against the egotism of humans and the egotism of the elites which usually try to guarantee their own interests above those of their nations and of their own people. But they are the ones that prevail because they have the economic power, the political power and the military power.
Alejandro Castro EspinIn building up a democratic model I think that Cuba's contribution, little by little, has contributed to getting closer to the ideals of those philosophers, of those Greeks who thought about how a society could be fairer, how a society could really represent the interests of the people. We have tried to get closer to that from a Latin-American perspective and from the Cuban perspective.
Alejandro Castro Espin